Verse of the Day 11/24

 

Hebrews 6:17-18  God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. ¹⁸ So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.   New Living Translation (NLT)

 

We've considered how we are called and challenged to "hold onto the faith".  It involves hearing, listening to God through His Word, taking action, applying it in faith in our lives and keeping hold of it throughout our lives, in good times and in bad.

 

John Piper in his daily devotional yesterday expanded on this.

Why does the writer encourage us to hold fast to our hope? If our holding fast was obtained and irrevocably secured by the blood of Jesus, then why does God tell us to hold fast?

The answer is this:

• What Christ bought for us when he died was not the freedom from having to hold fast but the enabling power to hold fast.
• What he bought was not the nullification of our wills as though we didn't have to hold fast, but the empowering of our wills because we want to hold fast.
• What he bought was not the canceling of the commandment to hold fast but the fulfillment of the commandment to hold fast.
• What he bought was not the end of exhortation, but the triumph of exhortation.

He has given us the grace, an unbreakable spiritual lifeline (below) and the enabling power to hold on,  He has empowered our wills to hold fast, He see's to it that it will be so, He has done it in triumph, through His life, put on display in ours that we have "a story to tell".

 

We've a story to tell to the nations,   that shall turn their hearts to the right,   a story of truth and mercy,   a story of peace and light,   a story of peace and light. 

  We've a message to give to the nations,   that the Lord who reigneth above   hath sent us his Son to save us,   and show us that God is love, and show us that God is love

Refrain:  For the darkness shall turn to dawning,   and the dawning to noonday bright;   and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth,   the kingdom of love and light.

 

In Christ,
Mike

 

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Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

Hebrews 6:17-20

The Message (MSG)

God Gave His Word

 When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them so that if there is any question that they'll make good on the promise, the authority will back them up. When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee—God can't break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable.

^18-20 We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It's an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.